Responsible media challenge: data ethics, diversity, and sustainability

Media agencies and advertisers need to take active steps to address a range of issues to enhance media quality, including data ethics and sustainability, says the head of Mindshare ANZ. 

The media agency took part in a panel at SXSW Sydney called ‘Building a Better Future, Can the Digital Media Ecosystem Clean Up its Act?’ Speaking on the panel, CEO Maria Grivas said Mindshare is focusing on five pillars to improve media quality, including: 

• Brand safety and suitability 
• Data ethics 
• Diversity, equity and inclusion
• Responsible journalism
• Sustainability

How to achieve a responsible media environment 

• Responsible media needs to be driven by advertisers who have an “absolute responsibility” to quality journalism, and moving funding away from clickbait content. 
• The entire adtech supply chain has to play a role in supporting responsible journalism, including minimizing carbon emissions. For adtech players, this means ensuring money is spent on quality publishers, investing in the right protocols to ensure verification, and curating the right inventory sources so that equity is funded.
• The adtech industry can act as a third force to help publishers and agencies bring an added responsibility to funding quality media, said Jason Barnes, PubMatic APAC chief revenue officer. 

Key quote

“The tools, technologies and capabilities exist for brands, advertisers, marketers, and agencies to take the leap forward to make steps [to clean up the media ecosystem]. I don’t know how incentivized our industry or marketers are to do the work to discover those opportunities. It’s too easy to use ignorance as a veil” – Maria Grivas, CEO, Mindshare Australia and New Zealand.